Aberdeen-based Specialist Subsea Services (S3), a provider of ROVs and survey services to the oil and gas and renewable industries, has signed a charter with EDT Offshore for the EDT Hercules vessel.

The three year agreement, which comes with two additional one year extension options, will allow S3 to provide its full scope of ROV, survey and life of field services from the vessel, strengthening its integrated offering.

Launched in 2013, the EDT Hercules is nearly 90m in length and has a deck load of 2,300t. With accommodation space for 71 people on-board including crew, the DP2 vessel will play a key role in the subsea specialist’s growth throughout the next three years as it looks to build on its extensive operations, both in the North Sea and emerging global regions.

Announcing the agreement at Oceanology International 2014, the world’s largest exhibition for marine science and technology, Graeme Kidd, managing director of S3, said: “This charter signals another significant stage in our ambitious growth plans for S3. We are committed to investing in leading edge technology and we’re delighted to have secured the EDT Hercules which is ideally suited to our operations.

“We are excited about this opportunity to partner with one of the marine industry’s quality driven organisations and it’s a relationship that we will look to successfully nurture over the coming months and years. S3 continues to place a great importance on partnership working and this link-up with EDT Offshore reinforces this.

“The vessel charter strengthens our offering to our client base, allowing us to continue to be at the forefront of providing innovative solutions and access to new technology. Our intention is to continue to build on the strong foundations we have in place and this agreement is very much a signal of our intent.”

Capt. Trygve Godoe, chartering manager of EDT Offshore, said: “We are very pleased that this contract is signed and hopefully this will continue what is already an established and successful relationship with S3 and lead to exciting future opportunities.”